Meet the Faculty

Dr. Annette Grefe was born in San Francisco, but grew up in Germany and attended high school there. She returned to the U.S. after graduation and received her BA from Southern Connecticut State University, then obtained a Master’s degree in Journalism at Syracuse University in 1983. After working at a medical center publication for the University of Alabama Hospitals in Birmingham, Alabama, she become fascinated with medicine, and with the neurosciences in particular. She pursued premedical studies at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and in 1992 graduated from the University of Alabama School of Medicine. She completed an internship in Internal Medicine at the Baptist Medical Centers in Birmingham and then entered residency and fellowship training at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center in Denver, Colorado. She completed her Child Neurology training in 1997 and then moved to Billings, Montana, where she spent nine years in solo private practice. She missed the intellectual stimulation of academic practice, however, and therefore joined the faculty of Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in October 2006.

Dr. Grefe is a generalist within the subspecialty of pediatric neurology. She particularly enjoys taking care of patients with epilepsy, neurologic complications of rare genetic and metabolic disorders, as well as movement disorders. She believes that truly listening to patients (or their parents) is a physician’s most important attribute. She is enthusiastic about teaching and has been actively engaged in medical student and resident education and curriculum development. As a result, she was named Residency Training Director for Pediatric Neurology in 2008. She is passionate about sparking students’ interest in pediatric neurology, and about training her residents to be the best doctors they can be.

In her free time, Dr. Grefe enjoys art and photography. She and her husband also love choral music, travel and exploring the outdoors with their two Australian Shepherd dogs.

Dr. Chon Lee was born in Seoul, Korea and emigrated with her family to the U.S. at the age of three. The majority of her childhood was spent in Minnesota. She graduated with a BA in chemistry from the Johns Hopkins University in 1983, then entered the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, graduating with an MD in 1987. Following medical school, she was a surgical intern in Los Angeles. She changed her career focus to pediatrics and relocated to North Carolina to be with her husband. After a research fellowship in pediatric infectious disease, she was a pediatric resident at UNC-Chapel Hill, completing residency in 1993. She joined the pediatric faculty at Moses Cone Hospital in Greensboro, NC, where she practiced and taught for thirteen years. While a fulfilling career, she wanted to become more expert in a narrower field of pediatrics and returned to UNC for training in child neurology. After completing residency in 2009, she was a fellow for an additional year in clinical neurophysiology and epilepsy. She joined the neurology faculty at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in August 2010. Although trained as an epileptologist, she is interested in all aspects of child neurology. Dr. Lee enjoys playing the piano, relaxing at the beach and when time allows, visiting Korea. She has a daughter in college and her husband is a medical researcher.

Dr. Gautam “Vinnie” Popli grew up in India where he attended medical school and completed a pediatric residency at Jabalpur University. He then came to the US and completed a second pediatric residency at Lincoln Medical and Mental Health Center, a Cornell-University-affiliated program in New York. For the next eight years he worked as a general pediatrician and hospitalist in Maine, where he also served as a volunteer fire fighter. While general and critical care pediatrics (and fire fighting) provided plenty of excitement, it did not provide the intellectual stimulation he was seeking. Dr. Popli therefore decided to pursue Pediatric Neurology residency training at the Boston Medical Center, Boston University, where he graduated in 2009. He subsequently completed a fellowship in Epilepsy and Clinical Neurophysiology at Children’s Hospital in Boston (Harvard Medical School) in 2010.

His main areas of interest within pediatric neurology include intractable epilepsy, epilepsy surgery and brain mapping.

Dr. Popli has a private pilot’s license and in his spare time enjoys collecting medical books and other antiques related to the medical profession.

Dr. Mary Silvia was born in Fresno, CA where she lived until moving to Los Angeles to attend the University of Southern California to study Mechanical Engineering. She obtained a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering, but in her last year of engineering school, changed her focus to medicine. For a year following graduation, she was a Lecturer for the Mechanical Engineering department teaching introductory Engineering classes while taking pre-medical requirements. She subsequently attended Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts, where she became interested in neuroscience and decided on a career in pediatric neurology. She completed 2 years of general pediatrics residency at Johns Hopkins Medical Center and then transferred to the University of Pennsylvania Neurology program and the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia for both pediatric neurology training as well as a fellowship in Epilepsy/Neurophysiology. After finishing her training, she moved back to Southern California, where she worked as a solo pediatric epileptologist at Loma Linda Medical Center for almost 4 years. However, missing the intellectual stimulation and comraderie of epilepsy colleagues drew her back to the east coast to join the faculty at Wake Forest Baptist Health.

In her spare time, she enjoys visiting her younger brother and his family in Greensboro, playing tennis and other sports, reading, playing with her dog Pepe, and watching independent films and documentaries.

Disclaimer: The information on this website is for general informational purposes only and SHOULD NOT be relied upon as a substitute for sound professional medical advice, evaluation or care from your physician or other qualified health care provider.